brickyardbabe
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Not-Dana nods, sitting up to take the bottle and setting the pills on the bed. So that’s why she came here. Getting her astral signature changed. Why would she have done such a thing like that. She almost asks, then resolves not to. After all, he had lied to her about her name. Had she given a false one? Or is this doctor keeping something from her? Either way, no question she asks will get an answer she can trust completely, so she simply doesn’t bother asking.
Not-Dana takes the blood bag, raising it to her lips and delicately biting through the plastic corner, then sucking gently. She shudders at the cold blood, and it does nothing for her real thirst, but its wet and her body has an atavistic reaction to it, her mouth exploding into tingling as it floods with saliva, and she drinks several swallows.
When she tries her voice again, it is low and rough, but less harsh and croaking. The beauty of it is there, at least, hidden behind the smokiness. “Thank you, doctor.” She glances around the featureless room, more to give the appearance of looking around like a normal person than to actually gather any information.“If it is not too bold, may I ask whether I came in with any effects? A commlink, a credstick, anything?” She puts a little simper in her voice, and her eyes widen fractionally, projecting the image of a frightened, pretty young maiden rather than the deadly sorceress and vampire she now knows herself to be.
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Not-Dana looked at the blood bag, looked at the doctor-drone-thing, looked at the bag again. Then, very deliberately, she looked down toward her wrists. She did not comment on the fact that blood alone would not sustain her. The instinctive, wicked part of her that was the creature of the virus knew that, even if she could not explain how. She knew what food was, but looking at the bag didn’t arouse her hunger any more than looking at a can of paint would have.
She said nothing, however. Let him think the blood was sufficient, if he chose.
At least her mouth wouldn’t be dry anymore.
“I would take that, but I am afraid I am…tied up, at the moment.” Not-Dana said. She frowned. “You are…not an enemy, not as such. So why am I restrained?”
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Dana.
Day-nah.
No.
She is not Dana.
She is…
She shakes, her breathing coming in rapid snatches as she wracks her brain, searching for something, anything…
She doesn’t know who she is.
That kernel of knowledge is terrifying, and her hands and shoulders tremble as she begins to realize how much she has lost. She is about to panic, to reach for her power and try to break free of this place, this unfamiliar, sterile, banal little hell that has taken her mind and her self, but one thing stops her.
She knows who she is not.
She is not stupid. Impulsive and irrational perhaps, she does not know, but not stupid.
And she is not Dana.
It is a silly little thing, to know what her name isn’t, but to her, it is important. It means that on some level, she can recognize what she is not, and that means, perhaps, that there is hope for recognizing what she is. She might have been Dana, once. Perhaps it was even her real name. But she is not Dana, not now. She clings to that, that tiny little rock of recognition in the storm of uncertainty, and her shaking stops.
She cocks her head at the drone. “I am-” She stops. Her voice is thick, croaking. Her mouth is dry, the sort of painful dryness that comes with long periods of anesthesia or dying of thirst. In her case, it may be both. She works her jaw a few times, mindful of her teeth, then whispers. Whispering is good, easier. “I appear to be well enough. I am thirsty.” A beat, then, “Where am I?”
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Bloods, seas and messes of it all around…
Pain, all-encompassing and all-consuming, shrieking-tearing-ripping-stabbing…
Fear. Dark. Cold.
Tears…
ROBYN.
Warmth. Light. Heat.
Life begins again.
Her eyes snap open, a tearing, eldritch scream trailing off into a half-remembered name, but with no significance attached. She is panting, lank, dark hair hanging around her shoulders. Her fingers are clutching a thin, scratchy blanket over a stained sheet. Her eyes, big, wet eyes the dead color of a weimareiner dog’s, dart around the room, looking for threats with the sort of instinct born of a lifetime of survival on the edge of society. She turns her head.
It hurts. A lot.
She squeezes her eyes shut against the pain for a moment, and her perception flickers. She can still see the room, but now it is a riot of colors. Strange shapes and odd shadows permeate the place, and something about it makes her skin crawl. The sights bring emotions, memories not her own, phantom sounds and smells of blood and fear and suffering and desperation.
She bites her lip, feels a stab of pain, swears, and is shocked by the croaking, thick sound of her voice. The curse brings with it associations, words. It is french. She speaks french. She learned it…
Where?
The thought sparks others. She cannot remember where she learned French, but she speaks it. She cannot remember many things. This room is unfamiliar. She cannot remember why she is here. She closes her eyes again, her breathing beginning to speed back up, and the strange sights return. It is astral perception, she suddenly understands. She is a mage.
She probes her lip. The split is gone. She probes the tooth that left it. Sharp, long. It is a fang. She is infected with HMHVV.
Banshee. She is a banshee.
She begins breathing harder. Banshees are the other. The enemy. They are feared, hunted. Is that why she is here, in this room? Has she been captured? No. She would remember that, wouldn’t she?
She tries to rise. Her limbs do not obey. She is restrained. Her eyes flick down to the heavy restraints. She has a vision, of another time and place, of nails and a table and awful vitality burning through herself as she tears herself free. She cannot do that here, she knows, though she doesn’t know how she knows. Something is missing.
Again her eyes shut, and she can see herself, and the sight steals her breath. She is glowing, a humanoid shape made from the heart of a star, blazing with her radiance, arcs and lines of color wrapping around it, spells whose meaning she instinctively understands though she has no memory of placing them there. They are intact, which means her captivity is not hostile, else they would be gone. No hunter would leave her with her quickenings, leave her ungloved and unmuzzled.
She is a powerful mage, she knows suddenly.
More memories, fragmented but carrying a gut-deep knowledge. There are names, but not faces, lessons but not teachers. But her magic will come when she calls. It is wan, she knows, as bright as it is there is something dampening her inner fire, but it is puissant nonetheless.
But where is she? And why?
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Man, I take my eye off the ball for…two years…and everything really goes sideways, doesn’t it?